I was born in Brooklyn (like everybody), but I served in the Israeli army; my first reserve duty was the Six-Day War. My father was a Palestinian--born in Poland, emigrated to Palestine when he was three years old, in 1920. I inherited a deep love of Israel from him. I hate the stream of lies I read and hear daily about Israel. I love Israel's people--all of them.
[Contact me: joel dot orr at gmail dot com]

Monday, July 22, 2002

Get Freud out of politics

Sigmund Freud was a distinguished Jewish intellectual with a profound influence on our civilization. The Freud Museum website (http://www.freud.org.uk/l) reflects that legacy with its archives and historical research on the life and works of Sigmund and his daughter Anna Freud. The museum is housed at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, London, the home of Sigmund Freud and his family following their escape from the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 until Anna Freud, the youngest daughter, died in 1982.

But part of the large website of the Museum is a section called "Freud Today" . There the generally academic tone of the museum goes off the rails into anti-Israel personal opinion. The "Freud Today" section has the stated goal to "show how Freud himself or psychoanalytic ways of thought might respond to everyday situations and issues of the day". In fact, it shows how the writers of the section can attempt to use Freud's name to push their own pro-Palestinian Arab propaganda.

Examples:

1. September - November 2000, "The Arab-Israeli Conflict". Reprints a suspect translation of a Freud letter rejecting a call for him to condemn Arab riots in 1929. The museum writer concludes from this that Freud would have been "gratified at the growing call within Israel itself to pull out of the occupied territories".

2. December 2000 - March 2001, "Holocaust Memorial". The museum writer turns from a discussion of the Holocaust into this statement: "That is why today, as I write this, I feel a sense of pride - as a human being - when I read the headline, 'ISRAELI ARMY DESERTED BY SOLDIERS WITH A CONSCIENCE'". This outrageous linkage between the Holocaust and the internal Israeli issue of soldiers serving in the territories is nothing more than the writer's personal opinion, yet the platform of the Freud Museum is hijacked to present these views.

There are more such instances that you can find for yourself. Fortunately this irresponsible and unprofessional activity has been noticed and an on-line petition is available to protest. You will find the petition here with more information on the offending material: